Fight!
by ReturnToSender
Summary: …And who was she? Who was she to make the laws of love? “Oh, Naruto. You love him don’t you?” No! No, what the hell was she saying – ‘there’s only the fight between us’ – and it’s the truth! And it doesn’t hurt…it doesn’t. [SasuNaru] AU.
1. Chapter 1

Fight!

_Frequency - - 87.5 FM_

Sweat and stink and smearing blood. Cement walls and cement floors, dull-gray slabs giving no quarter to the weight of a body - a slab of meat in a warehouse. It was elemental in that respect, a place that demanded the same privy tossed up to the church - - pennies in the box, prayers in the row, spit balls and gum wads on the Virgin Mary. It was under someone's building somewhere, graffiti _(Chacko + Genie 4 - eva) _pipes and chains, dripping, dripping, like blood. Only sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't.

At night they came with their cherry drops orange in the darkness, flicking ashes - the smell of smoke and booze. At night they came and lines were drawn, bets were made and the strongest and skill-iest bared themselves.

And fought. Fought like everyone's movie hero. Fought to distraction.

They fought like they had something to prove.

_Except they didn't_. Sun bleached hair and shards of broken dreams in his too-blue eyes - a wisher's eyes - the-boy-in-the-corner saw the sandpaper truth (_scritchity-scratch across the ugly gash)_. Bend over, suck-em-off, open those so-many-time-opened legs.

_(Ya nothin' more 'n entertainment, kid.)_

Cynicism rode bitter on his tongue - hot acid flushing his throat - but in the end _money _made the world go 'round. It couldn't be a sin, not when the money wasn't there and the rent needed to be paid, food needed to be bought, and clothes needed to be fixed. Because there wasn't enough to get new ones. Hand me ups and Hand me downs, the way of life in his rather _extended _family.

"You ready then?"

The guy with the dark hair and unimpressed eyes had won the last three fights, his breathing still calm, still strangely focused. He looked Korean but they said his name was Japanese. Too-blue eyes saw the humor swimming there - in the wavy heat and stink.

Jap versus Jap. _Where's the Kung-foo? Hey, c'mon! Do it up like Bruce Lee!_

The cement block might've been closer to their neck of the woods - he wasn't ignorant of the shifty eyes and barely concealed tats - but the _gaijins _had a way with their loud mouths to supersede everyone - everything - in the room.

It had become boring and passé to explain the differences between countries and peoples to the obviously uninterested. And unconcerned.

"Yeah! Here comes an old crowd favorite! Naruto Uzumaki!"

Skin to skin, hand to hand - it was the only way to go. Naruto stomped out a butt beneath his heel - hiss and burn - bare feet slapping the floor as he strolled into the circle. Cargos wrapped tight, no belt, orange florescent to attract the eye. He'd always been rather flashy, and why not?

It was his shit to flash.

"A hundred on Kamikaze! Wha hahahah!"

"Twenty on the new kid!"

The _divine wind _had blue eyes and blonde hair, but the short ones were always suicide bombers. He stretched his arms - tense after three fights - and pushed back a couple longish strands of dark hair. Perhaps he'd get it cut tomorrow. Or maybe he'd get it cut today.

A blob of sandy-yellow spit splattered on the floor.

Punch, kick, block. Knee to gut. Bruised fists, cracked ribs. Naruto began hacking after a viscous punch to the solar-plexus, frothy blood dribbling from his mouth and nose. Snot and blood bubbles. The Korean - Jap (?) peered from one bloodshot eye and one swollen red-and-blue eye. He cracked his jaw back into place, snarling.

Naruto merely grinned and drop kicked his jaw out of place once more. Perfect, straight, aristocratic nose - he hoped it was busted beyond recognition.

Hiss and burn.

The man came back with an elbow to the stomach, knocking the breath out of the Kamikaze - a wheezy-rattling discharge of air. Sun and moon crashed to the earth in an impossible because-one-or-the-other-had-to-be-up sort of way.

One bubbly wheeze.

One scratchy rattle.

One on his knees.

One on his ass.

"Fuck! What the hell happened?"

"Who won?! Shit!"

Anger and jeers because they failed to sell themselves - Naruto knew the deal and his 'pimp' wasn't going to be happy about it. But somehow, someway, he couldn't stir up the concern that was required. _He'd fought someone good_. The sensation was delicious, as much as it was throbbing in every place the guy had hit. A missing piece of the staid equation - 'fighters, you fight for masculine glory!' It was as good as rough sex.

Hm.

No, not quite as good as that.

Vanilla and blood he smelled on himself, when the familiar arms of a familiar man helped him up and away. He smiled, bloody, gap-toothed, and resting in that gentle curve was a promise – 'we draw,' it whispered, 'there will be a next time.'

The Jap (Korean?) coughed up something red and sticky, before he smirked and re-split his lip. 'Yes,' it affirmed, 'again.'

And they heard something in the drip, drip, drip of the cement cistern somewhere - heard the voices that weren't jeers. Because they'd given them something good to watch.

"Rematch! Rematch! Rematch!"

000

"You really messed yourself up this time, Naruto!"

Nothing like sisterly affection, especially for a guy who'd been put through the meet grinder. He blinked blood shot eyes - blue threaded with red fingers - and looked blearily up at the pink blob. The shine of a huge forehead.

It focused, and became - - ah, Sakura.

A stinging dab, soft gauze and wrap – one, two, seven times – he grunted at the painful tug. He wondered if there was such a cure for a thing called bitch.

"Well, that's what you get you moron."

Rowr.

"H-hey! Did you get that guys name? The one I was fighting?!"

She sighed - it was a long suffering, angry at the world-herself-men-women-children sigh. And it bothered him in his heart.

"…How much did we get? I did seven rounds before That Guy."

She went about the motherly thing and blew on a nasty cut above his eye, before clinically – fiercely, apologetically – pinching the skin together with a butterfly tab. Stinging, it didn't feel much like a butterfly _(orange, red yellow, gold)._

"We got enough for a couple weeks. Please…Naru-chan, look for another job!"

Apologies languished in the back of his head – 'I'll try, I swear,' then 'promise, never again' – but they all seemed empty, hollow. Like his wallet, their fridge, the shoes for the others and nice jackets for winter. She worked – twelve hours on her feet, 'yes sir,' 'no sir,' 'right away sir,' cop-a-quick-feel – it was never enough though, not like the kind he made selling the fight.

_C'mon Ching, Chang, Cho, show them the moves that made your country awesome! Not like you're worth much 'cept cheap electronics and shirt washin'._

_Peasants. Peasants. Peasants._

He wasn't a fucking peasant. So he didn't say anything, and knew she wouldn't say anything, and there was this huge hole of didn't-say-anythings between them, glaring. Glaring.

"His name was…Sasuke. They didn't give a last name."

Sasuke. He'd remember that, because there would be a next time and a next time and a next time until he could stop. But the sad thing was, he'd never stop.

"How 'bout we pick up some fish, tonight? I'm sure Konohamaru would like some."

She sighed, and it was that you're-lucky-I-love-you-and-thank-you-for-everything sigh. He liked this one better.

"…Sounds fine."

000

Sasuke limped _(one-step, two-step, three-step, four-step)_ to avoid the pain, but it was unavoidable - like a thunder clap in his blood. Every jarring step was a mile. Fucking fight, stupid _(worthy, talented)_ blonde – _divine wind _indeed – oh, they'd go at it again. He tasted his own blood for fuck's sake - a kind of silent ecstasy in itself. Because maybe then he _was_ real. A little. Sort of.

As a kid he'd scraped his knees and chewed his tongue 'till it bled, just for that most perfect affirmation. Looked up the word masochistic and found his sick preferences spelled out in English – 'no Japanese, because we're not living in Japan!' screaming in his damn ear.

Yet it was still a word, not a practice.

Then he'd found the lot fights. _Beat 'em, bang 'em, kick the shit out of 'em -_ for a few moments the world held an almost blinding color, the color of back street lighting, and skinned knuckles and lots of angry spitting blood. In all his sixty-five successful bouts he'd never broken his nose.

He'd pay Blondie back for that one.

"You know those stories of 'falling down the stairs' are only going to go so far."

"...They'll go as long as I want them too."

A quiet laughter and Sasuke felt his arm being lifted and draped across a helpful shoulder. Silent, introspective boy, two years older - sometimes three - good family, good breeding. Friend was such a rare word for both of them.

"You know the Hyuuga name is not to be involved in such sordid affairs, right Uchiha?"

Ha, ha, fucking ha.

"Fuck you."

"In your wildest dreams...Sasuke."

Sasuke coughed through his laughter and spat a broken tooth out on the sidewalk - roll and bounce, click-clack stick. He wondered if Neji had a smoke.

"Fucking queer."

"...I'm not the one with a boner for the opponent."

And he would've replied - wounded masculinity after all - if he hadn't felt his elbow throb all the way down to his finger tips and promptly blacked out. But he'd definitely said his piece - 'asswipe, fag, no way in hell!' - across the blank annals of his mind.

Neji raised a brow, a what-the-fucking-hell gesture and adjusted the dead weight hanging off of him. Seven blocks for a decent taxi - probably equated four bum attacks, two propositions, and five or six possible muggings. Loyalty, another 'rare word.' He really should leave the idiot to rot.

"But it seems that is not your fate this day, Uchiha."

Draping blue blazers, gold circles inscribed letters 'T.A.' - flap, flap in the balmy wind, it was going to storm pretty soon. But money didn't make the world go 'round - for them the next thrill did. Neji would deal with this latest storm as he'd weathered the others, cooly, almost-but-not-quite detachedly. Sasuke hadn't said anything about his obsessive cleanliness stage, so they wouldn't speak of this.

At least, not in the regular manner.

_Frequency - - 97.9 FM_

A/N - Please Review. No negative comments on the writing style please, it's meant to be choppy and just a little ambiguous. I know it seems more violent then romantic (crosses fingers) but like everything with our favorite duo I think 'rough and violent' describe them to a T.


	2. Chapter 2

1Fight!

_Frequency - 97.9 FM_

Three weeks since the fight. Three weeks, six hours, and twenty-nine minutes. Naruto glared out the bus window - yellow, bullet holed, stop sign, street sign, stop sign, stop sign - wishing for something _(a man with dark hair and uninterested eyes)_. He needed to fight That Guy again. It was a disease, he lamented, it had to be. No one normal would feel like he would die without a fist to the gut.

"You okay man?"

Gruff voice, affable personality - Kiba, another one of his 'family' and though a year older was about three inches shorter - 'Not short, you guy's is just wicked tall!' He always looked ready to throw down, and they usually threw down together.

"...Just need a fight Kiba."

Dark laughter and the sudden shuttering of the bus as it squealed to a stop. Hot chick in red, two old ladies with thirty bags, some guy who looked homeless - why was he looking for something that wasn't there?

"Your guy'll come back. From the way it looked in that fight he had it in for you too."

And what the hell did Kiba know? Everything went for him like a blasted fairy-tale - white charger, they-lived-happily-ever-after, napkin rings and Chinese take-out tale. Bleh, he wanted to throw up. Why couldn't things be so easy for him?

"_- caught in the rug holes."_

...Maybe he was being bitter. Kiba had been through the crap-tastics with Shino _(starts, stops, silence and sign language)_ so it really wasn't his place to start waxing poetic about the guy's supposedly easy-esque life. They all had it rough.

"I love goin' up high street. You get all the glamorous people staring at the bus."

Another chuckle, warm and affectionate.

"You mean the spray paint on the side of the bus."

"Either way, I wonder if zoo animals feel like this."

"Like what?"

"Like the stupid faces pressing against the glass are really the supreme predators that locked them up in the first place."

Naruto fiddled with a cigarette in his pocket. Just one quick flick and his sudden nicotine craving – oh the agony - would end. Thank god.

_A man with dark hair and uninterested eyes._

No.

He scrambled forward over bags and angry job-comers and goers - 'watch it punk!' 'what the hell?' 'hey, that's my stuff!' - and pressed his stupid face against the glass-plastic.

His heart sped up a pace or two and he felt that weird shakiness that lingers after an adrenaline rush.

"It's _him_."

Yellow cord in hand, one pull and a shit load of people he don't know would hate him. Shouts and anger, but there's no need to sell himself to them. These people don't matter.

"Naruto!"

Glares, mutters - the bus driver whirls around and hisses like an animal. An animal in a watchable cage, where everyone watches. Except _Sasuke_.

He's too uninterested to watch.

"Fuckin' stupid chink! Get the hell off!"

Gladly. The back door pops open with a squeak and a groan, people have already gone back to themselves - casual scene interest, 'oh the freaking drama' - opening newspapers and bouncing babies while he jumps 'the hell' off.

Kiba was yelling something in the background.

"Fuck you! Sonovabitch! Why don't you learn how to drive, chalky?!"

Naruto was already pounding the pavement, dodging around - over - men, women, dogs and venders selling things. Good smelling things that he wanted to stop for. But he couldn't, because That Guy was here. Somewhere.

"Naruto!"

One-one thousand, two-one thousand.

And there he was. Like curses and convoluted thoughts had evoked him out of thin air. _He _walked easily _(should be a chore dammit) _but even with the supreme air of 'better-ness' - blue blazers, T.A. - Naruto couldn't stop watching. And glaring, and promising.

They were going to sell this fight. _Their _fight.

"_Sasuke."_

Naruto knew it was loud enough to catch their attention - That Guy and his posse of friends. A pressure on his shoulder - five fingers, digging deep into his t-shirt, skin - and he knew it was Kiba, but the worry was unneeded. There was nothing to worry over.

They knew each other well, after all.

"Who the fuck are _you_?"

Screeching, scathing voice - bleeding ears - he winced and scowled at the blonde girl among _his _clique. Eyes like ice and coated with too much mascara, five sharp fingers clawing into a strong arm. The same arm that had caved his stomach in, spitting blood.

"Hey! Who the hell are _you _to talk to _Sasuke Uchiha_?!"

_Uchiha_.

_Uchiha_.

It echoed like something viscous - 'gang-bangers,' 'murderer,' 'brother of the demon himself' - clawing away at the inside of his skull. A moment of canvas blank, breath caught somewhere in his sternum.

_Uchiha_.

He felt the ground beneath him wiggle - a dragon on high street - and choked at the stagnant air. Murderer. Murderer.

He felt the pressure on his shoulder tighten.

Those dark, uninterested eyes found his own. A line of pure sight, recognition flared, a flurry of colored emotion. Anger, respect, something that-wasn't-quite-want, a sick perversion of need. The dragon beneath his feet moved again - wiggle, wiggle - 'the world is much bigger than one fight.'

But it wasn't bigger than his hatred when he heard the name _Uchiha_.

_Uchiha_.

And though it was strange, and though it was easily seen, dissected and understood,_ (but only by one other person) _Naruto knew something purely languid - desire, but not the real-world mechanics of it - lit behind his too blue eyes.

It was funny how much was held in a word, a noun, a name.

_Uchiha_.

Naruto smiled then, tiny curve that was more secret than open, more for one person than for anyone else.

He lifted a straight finger - click, click, shaped pistol, thumb-arced mock-hammer - and took aim at Sasuke. Sasuke _Uchiha_.

A breath at his lips, a soft split in his seam.

"_Yakuza_."

And it was funny how with one word all hell broke loose. Dark, uninterested eyes hardened, stony and unapproachable - gang of high-class kiddies that were angry enough to start some shit. It was only him and Kiba, something like 'bad odds' in his book.

"What did he just say!? He offended _Sasuke_! Kick his ass!"

Such a frequency - glass-breaking-resonance, shatter-crack. Someone should really shove a sock down her throat. An insistent tugging at his collar - 'we gotta go' - and he was being dragged backwards again. Always away from _him_, but this time it wasn't to the assurance of a smirk.

_Uchiha. Yakuza. _ Now they really needed to fight.

"What the fuck are you ass-heads doing?! Get the hell out of the front of my shop! Can't you read the damn sign? No loitering, means no fucking loitering!"

They cleared out fast, but not without blonde-bitch taking one final pop.

"Yeah, you better run, little punk! You ain't got shit on Sasuke!"

Naruto laughed long and hard, - Kiba starring, 'what the fuck?' - puddles from yesterday's rain spitting upwards to soak their legs. Oh, but he most certainly did have something on _Sasuke._

And it was _good._

000

"I can't believe that little ass rag! Offending our Sasuke - why, if that stupid old man hadn't shown up I would've clawed his squinty little eyes out!"

Sasuke wondered if the dumb bitch had any idea she was equally offending - 'squinty eyes,' yeah, how 'bout 'boot up your ass?' He didn't know why these people persisted in following him. He'd never given them the time of day - or the hour, the minute, the second really - marking it an infinite conundrum.

As also with the appearance of Blondie.

_Yakuza_. What the fuck was he talking about? He was no gang-banger - affiliations of blood and everything aside, 'cause even though Neji had a prick family, he was-, well, no, Hyuuga was still a prick really, but other than that - it irritated him to be tagged so. Especially by some no account _(talented, stop lying) _bumwho got lucky.

"Isn't that right Sasuke? You couldn't possibly know a stupid little fuck like that, right?"

Stop and rewind - he wanted to say 'yeah, Ino, we've actually fucked a couple times and he says he wants to move in with me,' and then flip her off before walking off himself. Damn how he wanted.

But he didn't say anything and they took it how they wanted.

Blue eyes. _Kamikaze_. He hadn't thought of that boy for a couple days. Planned on going back and all - just for that press of fist and flesh, living, alive, he felt like a damn addict - but he'd run into a few problems.

_His_ _brother_. He wanted to punch the image of that man out of his mind - make it numb, bloody, tingling appendage where the memory used to be - and forget they'd ever touched the same womb space.

_Yakuza_. Why the hell did Blondie's words bother him so much? What did he care?

Such an intimate look - flaring blue eyes, anger, envy, want, need, licking velvet hot strokes at the center of him. Like they'd shared more than blood and spit in that circle.

Like they'd shared a fucking life time.

Fuck, he was starting to sound like Neji.

"Leave me alone."

He shook himself of clawing octopus-people with no life of their own, and stalked off – because he rocked like that – in pursuit of bliss. Or a way out. Or perhaps he was looking for a distraction with blonde hair and blue eyes and punches that actually stung – bloody, bright, painful.

000

"Dude what was that about?"

Nothing. Nothing at all. N-O-T-H-

"Nothing."

Kiba made a sound - 'pish,' I-don't-believe-that-stupid-and-you-better-tell-me-what's-up sound - and Naruto wanted to punch him. He wanted to punch something, because That Guy, that fuck, was _Yakuza_.

He knew a monster when he saw one. Or recognized one, because it reflected in the mirror - 'good job, kid,' 'oh god, no, _god..._!' - everyday. Everyday.

They said - he knew because he knew 'Them' - a person hates those he is most like.

Hate was as good as love in their separate extremes of passion. And he was oh-so-passionate about _Sasuke Uchiha_.

Naruto had made his declaration - '_Sasuke,' 'Yakuza_' - so now he would wait. Tic-Tock, tic-tock, as long as it took.

"There's no _way _he won't come."

"...What?"

000

The fuzzy whisper of static in his ear, he did wait, but definitely not for long. One ring, two rings, three rings-

"Neji."

"...You sound unnecessarily chipper today, Uchiha."

"Shut it. Contact scarecrow again and get me a fight for Saturday."

The pause of a five-second stand still. A slightly obscene breathing itched his ears.

"...What's this about, Sasuke?"

"...

...He condemned me _Yakuza_."

"What?"

"Just do it!"

Click, sputter and die.

_Frequency - 102.1 FM_

A/N - I'm sorry that took so long, hopefully updates will be more frequent now that finals are over, and let me tell you! This writing might look sloppy and choppy, but it takes a lot of time to get it the way I want. I mean, a lot of it is almost lyrical and with poetry it's usually short because it takes a LOT OF EFFORT to get something to sound and read right. Anyway, hope you like, please review, and the next chapter involves both their fight, and a little _ahem _one-on-one time with our two favorite boys! Rowr.


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